Biographical Note: Felix Deutsch was born in Vienna on August 9, 1884. He attended the University of Vienna to study internal medicine, and became a doctor in 1908. During his university years, Felix Deutsch was involved in the Zionist movement and helped to found a Jewish fraternity Kadima, to which Martin Freud later belonged. Another devotion was art and music: he played piano, composed, and painted all his life. After his marriage to a psychoanalyst Helene Rosenbach Deutsch in 1912, he continued his medical practice, and became interested in the emotional problems of medical illness and psychosomatics. By 1923 he undertook the training analysis and helped to establish the first Psycho-Analytic Clinic. He was Sigmund Freud’s personal physician in 1922-1923. After immigration to the United States in 1936, Felix Deutsch became the first Professor of Psychosomatic Medicine of Washington University in St-Louis. A faculty member and a training analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute until his death in 1964, he held many academic and medical positions at Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Hospital, Simmons College, and Boston Veterans Administration Hospital.
Summary: The collections consists of 16 manuscripts boxes of papers and reprints, biographical sketches, seminar lectures, correspondence, and Veteran Administration Hospital records.
Note: full correspondence of Felix Deutsch has been added to BPSI Archives in 2012. More letters and papers of Felix Deutsch as well as his biographical materials could be found in related BPSI Collections listed below. BPSI also holds a sound recording of an interview with Felix Deutsch, published in 1938-1939 by G.W.University (see Audiovisual Materials, audio cassette 150). In addition, an Oral History Interviews Collection includes an interview with his son Martin Deutsch from the late 1980s (audio cassette 385), and an interview of Suzanne and Martin Deutsch in 2002 (audio cassette 497), both conducted and recorded by Dr. Sanford Gifford.
Finding Aid for this collection is available here (viewing it requires Adobe Acrobat Reader).
Related BPSI Collections
Assorted Correspondence, 1872-1996
Audiovisual Materials
BPSI History Collections: Scientific Meetings
Deutsch, Helene (1884-1982)
Gifford, Sanford
Kaufman, M. Ralph (1900-1977)
Related Sites
Felix Deutsch: intro by the Sigmund Freud Archives
Felix Deutsch: International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis
